By David Heiller
I read an excellent book a couple months ago that I would like to recommend. It is called The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, by Phillip Hoose.

Iíve been meaning to write a column about it for a while, but I didnít get to it until now. Iím glad I waited, for reasons that are obvious to many readers.

The book is what the name implies, a description of the efforts to save the ìLord God bird,î the ivory billed woodpecker.

If you like natural history, it is a fascinating read. For one thing, the bird is (I almost wrote ìwasî) amazing. Twenty inches tall, 30-inch wingspan, a pound in weight, extremely powerful and extremely beautiful. It lives to an average age of 15.

It must have been an awesome sight in the wild. John James Audubon called it ìthis great chieftain of the woodpecker tribe.î People would sometimes exclaim, ìLord God, what a bird.î That gave the bird its poetic nickname.

Thatís what makes this such a sad and unbelievable book. We good old Americans pretty much wiped them out. Mainly it occurred through deforestation of the Southern hardwood forests and the old growth timber in river plains and swamps of the southeastern United States. Itís an age old story that we have seen in our own fine state with the white pine in northern Minnesota. When money is involved, who cares about a few woodpeckers. You can almost hear the snickering in the board rooms of Chicago. ìWoodpeckers.î

The book also describes how individuals who actually seemed to care for the birds were part of their demise. For example, William Brewster was a wealthy man who collected bird specimens. He bought 61 ivory billed woodpeckers in the 1890s, dead, of course. One of his sources, Arthur Wayne, killed or paid for 44 ivory-bills in Florida between 1892-1894. Wayne all but eliminated all the ivory-bills on three rivers in Florida.

These idiots are a good reminder to me that not everyone has the wisdom that we like to associate with the good old days. Where was the person with vision to see what was happening. Who tried to stop it?

That finally that did happen in the 1930s, as the book vividly describes. People saw the threat to the ivory billed woodpecker. They tried like heck to save it, to stop the killing and logging. But they failed, or so it seemed. The last ivory bill in the U.S. was spotted in 1944. Some were possibly seen in Cuba in the 1980s.

Thatís where the book ended. It was a good read, with very important lessons, but bittersweet.

Until recently. Thatís the amazing next chapter of this story. Cindy heard it last Thursday morning and called out in a tone of voice that I donít think Iíve ever heard her use. ìOh my God, David, turn on the radio.î

I raced into the kitchen to do that, and heard the unbelievable news that an ivory-billed woodpecker had been seen in Arkansas.

And thatís where we are now, as you have probably heard. For the past 14 months, scientists have been studying and seeing ivory billed woodpeckers in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas. There have been seven confirmed sightings. One man who realized what he had seen began sobbing, repeating ìI saw an ivory bill.î I know when I heard the radio report, I felt chills go through my body.

Now if that seems dumb, if you exclaim, ìWhatís the big deal?î then read no further. The chasm is too deep between us. But I think itís quite a profound story. A magnificent creature that we tried our best to make extinct has survived. We havenít seen it for 60 years, and itís back. Thatís enough to say thanks to the birdís namesake, Lord God.

Phillip Hooseís book will make the story even more powerful. I highly recommend it. Now it wonít seem quite so bitter.

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